Frontlog 001: "The Body Changer"

Needs a better title card.

Dear Internet,

                Well, this is an unusual type of post, is it not?  I will admit that it is not the usual header that I have for this little experiment of a website.  So far, I have only written with two types of letters, not considering the ones titled "Announcement."  Either I am writing about one of the hundreds of entries that I have accumulated or I am writing about visual novels in general in an attempt to collect my thoughts about how I am approaching my own work.  So, to try and take one of those entries and bring it all the way to the front of the line without even having added it to the pile seems unusual in the very least.  Nay, it is downright rule-breaking if you think about it.  What can I do then, Internet?  There is only one thing I can do, Internet.  I have to make a new category of posts.  The Frontlog will be for games that are removed from the Backlog at an exceptional pace for one reason or another.  The reason that "The Body Changer" is getting the first of these types of posts is due to what I assume is a mass-email.

                About three or four days ago, I got a message from one of the developers of the game, asking for my impressions and what I thought of the game.  I am not sure how the developer knew I even had this game, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I got it from the "Be Mine 11" bundle from Groupees.  Maybe Groupees gave the developer contacts for all the purchasers of the bundle so that they could get feedback.  Maybe the only way at the time to get "The Body Changer" was from Desura via the Groupees bundle and by activating the code I was, by default, showing where I got it.  Or maybe mrKaizen of TheShortAndTheTall figured out that I write reviews too much and wanted my opinion.  How in the world that he would know this, I am not sure, especially considering that the email was through a Desura account that was not even remotely associated with this blog.  Chances are that it was just an en mass email, and now mrKaizen stumbled upon asking someone with a little too much time to review a game that is still in its alpha stage.  But, hey, no one else asked me to review their game or some other game either through personal message or by bulk mail.  So, let me get to it.

                "The Body Changer" is a third person shooter that is heavy on puzzle aspects.  It gets pretty down the half way point between the two genres, which is refreshing considering that I am like a knife at a gun fight when it comes to shooters.  The player controls a set of humanoid robots, the "SynB"s, that have to fix a broken facility, specifically reactivate a series of purifiers for the water pumps.  Doing so will allow the facility to be operational again.  Beyond that, the story does not matter much.  The specifics are so scant that it is almost forgettable.  What matters is the gameplay.

 

                The player begins by controlling only one android at first, figuring out how to move properly and aim with the camera.  Eventually the player gains the use of a second android and more after that.  Each of the various androids has specific abilities that allow it to specialize in a certain task. So far, there are three primary types of androids.  There is the combat unit, which can use a selection of lethal weapons.  There is the non-combat colored type that is more used for the game's various puzzles.  And there is the primary one that the player starts off with, which is somewhere in-between the other two.  Once the player has activated another android, they can switch between the two bots seamlessly to be able to tackle the game's puzzles.  

                As, I said before, "The Body Changer" is also a shooter game.  Whenever the player has to control the combat android, there is most likely going to be something that is due for its daily regimen of vitamin lead.  Some of the androids in the facility have gone haywire and begun to roam about, wildly attacking anything they come across, mainly the player.  They are rather simply identified as zombies in the game, something that gives the player a hint as to where to aim with the guns.  In the game's two levels, there are about three types of these malfunctioning robots, maybe four if the lizard men are mechanical.  Some stumble, some run, and some lunge.  No matter what, they need to be killed to advance forward.

Proof that successful enemy naming can give clues to strategy.

                "The Body Changer" has got a few things going for itself despite being only in early alpha.  The puzzles are interesting to say the least.  They were at least able to make me forget the obvious.  A good puzzle game can make the player forget about an earlier rule or solution.  If the game ignores the solution to a previous puzzle for a period of time, the player can end up completely forgetting about that certain situation.  In turn, when the solution repeats itself, the player needs to remember all that he has learned to continue onward.  The game's puzzles are not all just static, allowing an unlimited amount of time to find the solution.  Some of them must be solved while under a time limit or while being attacked by the previously mentioned malfunctioning robots.  The player even has to bounce between two androids during such scenes.

                One thing that I found really intuitive was the control method for crouching.  Most games have one dedicated crouch button that is usually mounted to either the "C" or "Ctrl" key for example.  Games that are made well will allow the player to choose which key they want to crouch.  "The Body Changer" goes one step better.  To crouch, the player can press the "Z," "X," or the "C" key.  Any one of the three buttons can be used.  This means that the player can use any one of his three fingers that are reserved for movement to crouch while still being able to move.  Since crouching is not used long enough to warrant a toggle switch, this is one of the best solutions that I have seen.  Maybe it is not as revolutionary as I want to think, but it makes easy movement while crouching a possibility without having to lose a finger over it.

                Another thing that the game does well is difficulty.  You have the usual bullet sponging from enemies and tighter restrictions on ammo, but changing the difficulty up higher goes one step further.  The waves of enemies that bombard the player change to fit the difficulty.  Instead of facing a lone heavy type of enemy, now you have to dodge his attacks while trying not to dodge into the arms of a zombie.  This simple change means that you have to change your strategies when increasing the difficulty rather than just refining the old ones.

                On the other hand, there are a number of things that "The Body Changer" does that seems like a shot in the foot.  Predominantly is the slow movement of the androids.  While it can be argued that the slow movement is a mechanic to force the player to think out their actions when in combat, it becomes frustrating when just trying to make the android search around for clues to the puzzle.  One or two times, I found myself stuck on a puzzle.  So, I decided to backtrack a little in hopes of a clue.  It was then that I realized how slow the robots moved.  It was just plain frustrating.  The robots can only run forward or in a forward diagonal direction.  That leaves five other of the eight directs to be an abysmally slow walking pace.  Not even the side to side directions get decent movement speeds.  This leads to a limited amount of movement abilities that can be used when fighting enemies.  Forget about trying to run circles around your enemies or even just moving side to side.  Most of the time, you are going to be standing very still and lining up headshots, which would not be so bad if it was not for the barrel roll dodge.

                The game places heavy emphasis on a side roll that allows the player to quickly dodge enemy attacks.  Basically, the player has to crouch and move the mouse in the direction that they want to roll.  While I find it en interesting mechanic, the problem is that once the roll is finished, the player is right back to the frustratingly slow pace that prevents more complicated movements that can take advantage of the space that the player has made away from hostiles.  The roll is mostly used against the lizard men enemies who rush the player.  The player is supposed to roll out of the way and shoot them in a specific way.  This would not be so bad if it were not for the fact that the game gave no hints as to how to fight them other than to tell you how to roll.  The first lizard man is supposed to be shot in the back, but I could not get around him.  Eventually, I think the AI lagged and started to walk away from me.  It was then that I shot him.  The second lizard man is supposed to be fought in a similar manner.  Roll out of the way and shoot him in the face.  The problem here is that doing so for the first five or so times does not indicate that you are doing it correctly.  He does not flinch at your shots.  He does not have any sort of indication that you are doing it correctly.  The only indication that the attack is working is that his health bar makes a minute decrease.  It is so negligible that the first two successful attacks make it seem like you are not doing anything at all.  When this lack of response to the player's actions occurs, the player is likely to attempt another strategy after another, never realizing that what they were doing at first was actually the right way.  Eventually, the lizard man does flinch and even stall, allowing a melee attack to knock him down, but the only way do so is to attempt a strategy over and over, hoping that it will eventually work.

So satisfying.

                There is also the quick turnaround move that is done by double tapping the "S" key.  It is a bit annoying since using the mouse to spin the camera around feels much more natural.  

                On the technical side, the game still has a number of flaws that I hope will be cleared up in the months ahead.  Whenever I took a screenshot, a window would appear that would tell me where the image was saved.  It would make a ticking sound effect when the text was appearing, and then keep making the sound well after the text finished appearing.  As of now, there are no manual save slots, which means that you either play from all over from the beginning or you carry off near where you left off.  A means of manual saving would be nice since both checkpoints and automatic save points feel a bit sporadic in their placing.  Also, if you launch the game under a different difficulty and then load the save file, you will be playing under the new difficulty rather than the previous difficulty.  The melee attack looks really stiffly animated, especially in the joints.  

                Overall, "The Body Changer" is an interesting game that still has got a way to go.  Some things work while others feel plenty clunky.  With only two levels in the alpha build, it is hard to even judge such a game.  I suspect that it will have another eight levels in the end to round it up to ten.  Usually with my reviews, I try and hide a star rating in the bottom with the tags, but I cannot do that this time.  How can I rate a game that is not even done?  All I can do is hope that the words I have here mean something when being read.  Sure, I look forward to playing this game again when it gets a full release, and I may even come back to it for a full review.  Until then, I withhold a final judgement.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop